Let me explain. Over the last year I've been speaking with corporate business and human resource leaders and hearing a common theme: we need our organizations to be more agile. We need to redesign our organization to build dynamic cross-functional teams, communicate faster, and rapidly find experts.

Well this quest for the agile organization has changed the nature of what we call a job. Jobs are turning into roles, roles are becoming more highly specialized, and the new currency of value is expertise, not simply experience.

Pfizer has set "increase business agility" as one of its four goals for the coming year. The company created an internal labor marketplace called PfizerWorks that lets employees bid on work from each other, encouraging people to deepen their specialties and expand their sphere of influence.

Executives at Siemens told me that their biggest challenge is moving engineers into new roles so they can focus on new product areas. In the past people were rewarded for moving upward - now they must reward people for moving horizontally.

InBev (Anheuser Busch), Scotiabank, and MetLife have all launched global talent mobility programs to force people to gain global awareness and expand business opportunities.

Something very profound is happening. Jobs are getting more specialized, people work in teams and cross functional boundaries, and success is being redefined by expertise, not span of control.